On the recordMay 14, 2008
The House bill didn't have a paid-for disaster provision in it, the Senate bill did. And so when we molded these together, we put these disaster provisions in, and we paid for them, the first time that we actually paid for a disaster with pay-as-you-go money, and we included the California disaster in the process and paid for it. This is not a new program. As I said, it is not an earmark, and it was brought in because we were dealing with a disaster. This is clearly a disaster. Any place that you have a complete shutdown of a commercial fishery, they are going to be in asking for help from the Federal Government. That is appropriate. This was brought in, the permanent disaster program from the Senate, and funded when we molded them together.
Source
govinfo.gov
